A foot in two worlds

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I finished a huge rewrite of my newest book yesterday. It was tougher than usual, and at times I truly felt I’d never get it done.

But I did. And now, before I’ve even had the chance to catch my breath, the next project, a screenplay, is begging for me to get started.

These stories are tough bosses. Each and every one of them feels they need to be WRITTEN, and NOW!

No patience. No patience at all.

What the screenplay doesn’t realize is that for the last several months I’ve had a foot in two worlds. The real one I share with my family and neighbors, and the imagined one where the story and characters live.

In order to step into a new world, the world I’ll create for the screenplay, I’ve got to retrieve that foot.

It could take several days. I got in pretty deep with the rewrite. Which is probably why that world is hanging on to my foot tighter than Scrooge to a penny.

But I’ll get my foot back. I always do.

I hope I don’t lose my shoe.

52 Films Directed by Women

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Here are the #52FilmsByWomen I watched.

52. Big (1988) directed by Penny Marshall
51. Suffragette (2015) directed by Sarah Gavron
50. Shrek (2001) directed by Vicky Jenson
49. The Intern (2015) directed by Nancy Meyers
48. Sleepless in Seattle (1993) directed by Nora Ephron
47. CodeGirl (2015) directed by Lesley Chilcott
46. Big Stone Gap (2014) directed by  Adriana Trigiani
45. From Fat to Finish Line (2015) directed by Angela Lee
44. The Babadook (2014) directed by  Jennifer Kent
43. Dial a Prayer (2015) directed by Maggie Kiley
42. A Conversation With Gregory Peck (1999) directed by Barbara Kopple
41. Hateship Loveship (2013) directed by Liza Johnson
40. If I Were You (2012) directed by Joan Carr-Wiggin
39. The Last Time You Had Fun (2014) directed by Mo Perkins
38. The Nanny Diaries (2007) directed by  Shari Springer Berman
37. Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry (2012) directed by Alison Klayman
36. Paradise (2013) directed by Diablo Cody
35. Touchy Feely (2013) directed by Lynn Shelton
34. Bewitched (2005) directed by Nora Ephron
33. Being Elmo: A Puppeteer’s Journey (2011) directed by Constance Marks
32. Honeymoon (2014) directed by Leigh Janiak
31. A Little Bit of Heaven (2011) directed by Nicole Kassell
30. Black Sheep (1996) directed by Penelope Spheeris
29. Arranged (2007) directed by  Diane Crespo
28. Deep Impact (1998) directed by Mimi Leder
27. The Road Within (2014) directed by Gren Wells
26. Knockout (2011) directed by Anne Wheeler
25. Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work (2010) directed by Ricki Stern and Anne Sundberg
24. Me and You and Everyone We Know (2005) directed  by Miranda July
23. Somewhere (2010) directed by Sofia Coppola
22. Crossroads (2002) directed by Tamra Davis
21. Tiny Furniture (2010) directed by Lena Dunham
20. The Decoy Bride (2011) directed by Sheree Folkson
19. The Proposal (2009) directed by Anne Fletcher
18. Ride (2015) directed by Helen Hunt
17. Race to Nowhere (2010) directed by Vicki Abeles and  Jessica Congdon
16. The Prince and Me (2004) directed by Martha Coolidge
15. What Women Want (2000) directed by Nancy Meyers
14. Pitch Perfect 2 (2015) directed by Elizabeth Banks
13. The Last Keepers (2013) directed by Maggie Greenwald
12. The Hot Flashes (2013) directed by Susan Sideman
11. Lucky Them (2013) directed by Megan Griffiths
10. I Will Follow (2010) directed by Ava DuVernay
9. She’s Beautiful When She’s Angry (2014) directed by Mary Dore
8. Clueless (1995) directed by Amy Heckerling
7. The Pirate Fairy (2014) directed by Peggy Holmes
6. Sexy Baby (2012) directed by  Jill Bauer and  Ronna Gradus
5. Can’t Hardly Wait (1998) directed by Deborah Kaplan
4. Seeking a Friend for the End of the World (2012) directed by Lorene Scafaria
3. Aeon Flux (2005) directed by  Karyn Kusama
2. Fed Up (2014) directed by Stephanie Soechtig
1. Frenemies (2012) directed by Daisy von Scherler Mayer

SHORTS

  1. The Cabbage Fairy (1896) directed by Alice Guy-Blaché

It was a fun experience. It got me to watch several films that I might have missed if I hadn’t been a part of this challenge.

I’m very glad I watched each and every one of these films.

This list is by no means exhaustive. There are a lot more great films directed by woman out there.

And I plan to watch as many of them as I can find.

Twenty-five pages

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Twenty-five pages. That’s it.
Only twenty-five pages stands between me and the birth of my next novel.

It’s been an excruciatingly painful process. I often felt I’d never get to the end of this grueling, horrid, seemingly never-ending rewrite.

Why this particular rewrite took so darn long I’ll probably never know. Usually I breeze through, with only the occasional sticky bit to slow me down.

But this rewrite had me drowning in a sea of molasses. If it weren’t for those rare islands of clarity, dotted about here or there, I’m not sure I could have made it through.

Oh, well.

Unless something catastrophic happens, like a cold, I’ll have it done in two weeks or less.

Then off to the editor it will go.

Or maybe I should hang on to it for a month or so before I send it off.

Time to bask in the warm glow of the look-what-I-accomplished feeling sounds mighty appealing right now. Once I get the manuscript back, all marked up with needed changes, that lovely glow dims a bit.

But no need to worry about that yet. I’ve still got twenty-five pages of rewrites to do, which gives me twenty-five pages to make that decision.

Ta-ta for now!

 

Routine and the painful process

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Something came up today so I won’t be able to write.

While not being able to write for one day isn’t the end of the world, it does frustrate me a bit. My grasp on the writing routine is tenuous at best. I love to write, but I seem to embrace every chance to play hooky that comes along.

The problem is that I’m not much of a routine person. In fact, I kind of hate routines.

Too bad they are so useful!

A good routine helps me get things done and actually reach my goals.

My goal at the moment is simply to get this book completed.

Right now I feel:
I’ve been working on this book FOREVER.
I’ll NEVER finish it!
I HATE it!
I’m SICK of writing it.
Why did I EVER start it in the first place?

It’s all part of giving birth to a book. It’s a painful process.

My records show that I began these rewrites March of this year.
But I had a detailed, ten page outline of the book dated February of 2013.
There was lots, and lots, and lots of writing in between.

So yeah, forever.

Titles

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Titles are some of the most irritating things ever invented. By that I don’t mean the titles themselves – a clever title can attract the right kind of attention – I mean the belief that a piece of writing isn’t complete until that all-important label is in place.

Who’s the genius, anyway, who decided every writer needed to sum up their entire book or screenplay in a few measly words?

Bleh!

I realize that I’ve never been particularly good at coming up with titles, but this latest book is really giving me problems.

Oh, I can think of titles galore. I have a long list of them that I look through every so often.

But none of them are right. They don’t fit.

It’s like when you need a new pair of shoes. You go to your favorite shoe store, confident that you can select the perfect pair in just a few minutes. But the first pair is too small and the second the wrong color. An hour later there you are, frustrated, beside an embarrassingly tall pile of discarded choices. Your only hope is that the mess gets cleaned up before your friends see you or some unwary soul gets too close and causes an avalanche.

For me, the worst part about not having a title is that it feels like I’m driving with the parking brake engaged. I’m moving, but I can feel the drag of the brakes.

If I could find that perfect title, I could release the brake and get up to highway speed.

I’d love to feel the wind whipping through my hair as I cruised to the end of the book.

Titles. Bleh! Bleh! Bleh!

Rain

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It’s raining.
I want the rain to stop.
It fogs my brain.
Makes me want to curl up in a ball and sleep.
It blurs my thoughts.
But not just mine.
A bird hit my living room window five times this morning.
Five times.
Five times the poor creature flew on a clear path to safety.
Right into my dirty window.
BAM!
I want the rain to stop.
It’s raining.

rain

Soup dream

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Ever had a dream you dismiss a nonsense dream, until you really think about it?

I just had a very weird one.

In the dream a large group of people came over for dinner. I had expected two people, but those two had decided to bring a few more, so I had ten extra people sitting around my table waiting to be fed.

Gulp! It might not be a true nightmare, but it would certainly freak me out if it happened in real life!

Anyway, the only thing I could come up with on the spur of the moment was soup. So I brought a big pot of soup to the table and started serving.

I must have overestimated how much I had because I was a little too generous with the first servings. The last people got just a few tablespoons in their bowls.

But that’s not the worst part. The soup I’d chosen to serve only had two ingredients, lettuce and water. Yep, I’d dumped several heads of iceberg lettuce into a big pot of water, brought it to a boil, and called it dinner.

Yuck!

Anyway, the dream disturbed me more than it should, so I sat down and thought it through. I needed to figure why I was so bothered by such a silly little dream.

It was easier to figure out than I thought it would be. Probably because I know my own mind pretty well.

I’ve been very lax this summer, letting pretty much everything cut into my writing time. Family, the kitchen remodel, the dog, sunshine, yard work, you name it, I’ve let it disrupt my schedule.

My brain is smart enough to know it’ll starve without some real writing time.

Just like I was starving my guests with that lettuce soup.

Now that I realize what’s going on in my noggin, it’s up to me to feed the hungry creature inside my head. Time to put my writing fingers to work and cook up something nourishing for my brain to enjoy.

Let’s hope I can come up with something more substantial than lettuce soup!

Hotel Monte Vista

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We spent two nights in a haunted hotel, and saw…well…nothing. I guess the ghosts weren’t in the mood for a chat, or a thump, or whatever those ghosts are known to do.

I’ll admit that I didn’t sleep well, which some people say is a sign of ghostly presence.

But those people probably weren’t taking into account the Karoake bar downstairs. That was one loud hotel!

Frankly, I might have gotten a decent amount of sleep if the ghost had made itself useful and plugged my ears with its ghostly fingers.

But the ghost refused to be so kind. So sleep was sporadic, and when I dreamed, it was of distressed cats howling in the distance.

I wonder why?

 

Mundane or hero

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Okay, I’m just going to say it. They’ve got it all wrong. And by they I mean the writers of all those books, tv shows, and movies that spout the message that being a hero is a lonely, sad existence.

Sure, it makes for good drama. The audience feels the the hero’s soul-scaring loneliness and a connection is forged. All of us feel a little lonely sometime. We can relate.

But it’s carried out too far. We, the audience, may yearn for the hero’s happiness, but deep in our hearts we know it’ll never happen. Time and again we’ve witnessed heroes win wars with muscle, only to lose everything on the emotional front.

We’ve seen it so often it has become ingrained in our culture. A hero must be sad and alone. That’s the way it is.

Nonsense. We’re letting ourselves be deluded by some lonely soul in the distant past who had problems with relationships and did a Tom Sawyer to cover it up.

Only chance to be happy is to be mundane?
Don’t you believe it!

Be a HERO.
Have FRIENDS.
Fall in LOVE, you gorgeous hero you.
You’ll be HAPPY you did.